Sound Bite: Clayton FrohmanI found the story originally in an obituary in the New York Times and uh back in 1995 cause a number of these guys had lived to be old men and they moved to New York City and they owned a trucking company and they were basically forgotten. So when they died, you know, so I read the obituary, and that lead the ? book Defiance and then I was sitting at a Dodgers game with Ed, and we’re old friends, and I said uh, I just told him the story, and uh that’s when we started working on it and um you know that was the beginning of it.

00:07:13427.6

Sound Bite: Clayton FrohmanUm the youngest, the one who is still surviving, who was about 14 in the forest, he’s still alive, he’s about 80 now, and so back in 1995 I spoke to him. His name is Erone, he lives in Florida, and so uh yeah we go to talk to him, but he was a little kid in the forest so he didn’t really remember too much about his older brothers but he just had a uh a worshipful attitude towards his older brothers.

00:07:56470.6

Sound Bite: Clayton FrohmanWell I grew up with The Guns of Navarone and The Great Escape and The Bridge on the River Kwai and they’re my favorite my 3 my uh probably my 3 favorites. There are many more, and of course I loved Schindler’s List, I loved Saving Private Ryan and his movies, so but those old movies put in my mind it’ll be great to do a World War 2 movie, so we’re here.

Sound Bite: Edward ZwickUm you know every now and then you come upon a story that sort of reaches deep down inside and the idea that um these ordinary men had accomplished this extraordinary thing uh was very very moving to me and also you know I think knowing about the Holocaust growing up and how many were lost and how hard it must have been to survive, to come to understand that and how that happened was very um very meaningful to me, very moving, it lead me to meet a lot of survivors, it lead me to talk to people, and to understand that there’s a real complexity to this event that is soon passing out of memory of those that are still alive that are leaving, are no longer gonna be with us.

00:12:45759.6

Sound Bite: Edward ZwickIt was hard, we wanted it to be um appropriate, we wanted it to be as it took place and it turned out we found a location that was only a hundred kilometers from where the story took place so that the forests were the same, the swamps were the same, and that really added special resonance to the process because it’s what we read about, it’s what we had written about, and so uh you know the faces were right, the faces the extras were right, and the props and the wardrobe and everything was there and available to us, so you can’t beat that.

00:13:24798.6

Sound Bite: Edward ZwickBoy that’s a hard one. Um I’ve never thought about that um, I know when I was a kid I sure liked The Guns of the Navarone. That’s maybe one.

Sound Bite: Liev SchreiberEd you know, I met Ed in New York and um I told him all the reasons why I didn’t think I was right for it and why I shouldn’t do it and how scared of it I was and Ed said basically it doesn’t have anything to do with you, it has to do with these guys and he told me more about them and uh convinced me that I absolutely had to do it if he would have me.

00:16:29983.6

Sound Bite: Liev SchreiberI believe particularly in this kind of story, in this kind of film, a lot of that lies with the director, but um for me it was reading the Khama textbook, it was uh um meeting the family members of the Bielski brothers, the surviving family members. And uh… (waits for sirens) Sorry, car. Um meeting the family, meeting the sons, meeting the guy who I play his father, um and looking at a lot of photos and talking to them about their experiences. I made a film myself about the Holocaust I’d spent a decent period of time um researching it in 2004 as well.

00:17:291043.6

Sound Bite: Liev SchreiberIncredible, incredible. You know that kind of stuff is like, it’s like narcotics for boys, you know, it’s like everybody keeps saying to me like, how was it for you doing the comic book movie? Because you know like I don’t know why they would question my desire to do a comic book movie but I was over the moon, I got to be on a wire, I got to run like a big game cat, I got to get punched a million times by Hugh Jackman who’s a very burly lad these days, it was really fun.

00:18:051079.6

Sound Bite: Jamie BellI never heard this story before. I mean you know I uh I love history, I used to pay a lot attention in history in school, especially in this kind of time in history, but I never heard this story before of these brothers who did something so incredible and so heroic uh and that to me was just to be a part of telling that story I just felt like I had to be a part of it and obviously Ed Zwick at the helm and Daniel taking the helm you know it was kind of a done deal after that.

00:18:381112.6

Sound Bite: Jamie BellYou know obviously I read the book, uh you know I had a pretty extensive knowledge of that time in history anyway but I mean in particular Jewish partisans wasn’t something I was particularly familiar with and Russian partisans was something I kind of knew about and you know uprising in the Warsaw ghetto I was kind of familiar with things like that but uh you know surviving in the forest for 3 years, moving 1200 people around simultaneously as a you know as a triad, it’s something I’ve never complicated before and I think it’s uh this film is a true testament to those people who did something so heroic.

00:19:131147.6

Sound Bite: Jamie BellIt was fantastic you know we couldn’t have made this one without the Lithuanian people uh a lot of them worked on our crew, a lot of them were in our supporting cast, you know they were all there with us sticking it out in the freezing cold that provided amazing locations for the film that were integral to the story, and we were always welcome you know and it’s uh I’d love to go back, we were in ?, it was a beautiful city.

00:19:401174.6

Sound Bite: Jamie BellYou know Come and See, which I think is a Russian film, I might be wrong, but it’s a Russian Film. Come and See I think is the seminal World War 2 movie for sure and I think people like Spielberg and everybody else would tell you that as well I think.

00:20:021196.6

Sound Bite: Ed AsnerTo see a good movie by Ed Zwick. See Daniel Craig. See a movie who’s subject uh matters who I associate with strongly.

00:20:191213.6

Sound Bite: Ed AsnerOh uh Paths of Glory. (They did a good job of showing war and they did a great job of showing the stupidity and evil of war so it should be seen by all children who will hopefully further the cause of not making war.

00:20:491243.6

B-Roll – Defiance Premiere – Mark Feuerstein, Jamie Bell, Feuerstein

00:22:221336.6

Sound Bite: Mia WasikowskaUm well I think um my limited family is Polish and I think it was exciting for me to read a script that dealed with issues that would affect my family and um um so that was what interested me in it and it was such a strong piece of writing and um and a wonderful director so I was very excited.

00:22:441358.6

Sound Bite: Mia WasikowskaUm it was good, it was cold and we spent 3 months in the middle of the forest and uh um yeah it was you know kind of unlike anything else but it was also amazing because we were very, we were surrounded by the history of the story that we were telling so it was great to you know in the middle of the old town was the old ghetto so we were very much a part of it.

Sound Bite: Mark FeuersteinWell I am Jewish. In my barmitsvah speech I spoke of children of Tarejinschtadt (??), this camp where they wrote poetry and did drawings that were stunning and um the largest rescue of Jews by Jews in the entire Holocaust, a hundred Jews were saved by this family, this little band of brothers and it’s not just about noble well-meaning Jews, it’s about tough, badass Jews who weren’t afraid to grab guns, kill Nazis, steal bread and milk from Nazi sympathizers, and kill people who killed their parents, so it’s the kind of story as a slightly angry Jew you want to tell.

00:26:521606.6

Sound Bite: Mark FeuersteinLithuania, it’s beautiful, beautiful churches, charming place, but when you know the history, and when you’re shooting a movie about it, it’s kind of hard to walk around actually I mean cause you know the history of this boy they um you know cooperated with the Nazis and they helped their final solution you know take action sot aht was tough but uh shooting with this incredible group of actors and with Ed Zwick who is at the helm who is just a master… heaven.

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